TOM SULLIVAN REVIEWS H.P. LOVECRAFT’S THE BOOK

This stunning review was posted on February 22nd, 2009 at Unfilmable.com, a website dedicated to the cinematic oeuvre of H.P. Lovecraft.

Tom Sullivan is an artist, filmmaker and creator of stop-motion animation and special make-up effects on THE EVIL DEAD trilogy.

It was written by the Darkone’s that some will get Lovecraft right as rain. Some will not.

My friends, before the creeping madness that devours the innards of my sanity I must confess I have discovered the former.I cannot and will never supply the link ([DEAD LINK]) that came before me as I must protect humanity from a horror so clear and profound it can only lead to the destruction of the overmind of mankind. And unbelievably it can be seen for free.

The horror must not spread. I have seen The Book and I weep for I have seen Lovecraft channeled to almost perfection.

So convincing is the sincerity of this fine motion picture and its closeness to the Master’s writings that I can only surmise the dark rituals and obscene sacrifices required to resurrect the spirit of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. A man who I know to be dead these many decades.It is based on Lovecraft’s The Book and The Descendant, stories, dear reader you will know by heart certainly. And it moves like a chilled breeze. It pulls you in like inescapable quicksand, sucking you in, entranced and weak.

I will recap the story so if you overhear it repeated in a muffled conversation you will know to run without other thought and never return to that town.

A student, one Isaac Williams visits Professor Northam with his volume of the forbidden book of the Mad Arab. I cannot utter its name or I will fall into the same panic and trauma that the elderly Professor succumbs to upon hearing its title. During the Professor’s needed rest the young foolish scholar wanders the ailing man’s office searching for answers to his mentor’s condition. Such care while commendable is not relevant to the terror lying beneath the content of the small book filled room.All too suddenly the young man’s tooth loosens and is pulled out. What happens next is impossible. How can a tooth bleed so much blood? Has he entered another ghastly realm or had that realm now enveloped this house. Then the creatures appear. Do not, I emphatically repeat do not dabble even in jest or simple curiosity the dark writings that are forbidden to man for a reason. These two men of great intelligence and strong character remain only men. Such dark secrets are kept from the World of man in order to protect their weak and fragile nervous systems. Learn from their fatal error. And if at some party or Lovecraftian appreciation event and some fool plays this film, under no circumstances watch. And warn your associates to never watch a frame past the credits. While the talented cast and crew certainly deserve high praise for their efforts, the fate of our hero revealed at the very end will lead you to the same mental disintegrating fate as the characters and I now face.